Yes, well lets face it. Bandwidth Costs, and so does producing content. Just like in magazines. This site, runs on a few machines (called acme and apex), and is hooked up to the net 24/7 at some cool ISP's co-location. Naturally, stuff like hardware and co-lo space rent, costs what most call "money".

A lot of it.

It's a real drag yes. 67,000 films where played off the server last month and that amounted to 191 gigabytes of bandwidth more than expected. And the price?
Just about the same as decent 17 inch screen. And that's just one month. I've been forking that out of my own personal pocket since 1999. Like most ladies, I'd rather spend my own money on say, lots of shoes - but I have been paying for this sites survival instead.

Them bills with a lot more gigabytes on it will keep coming every month. I can either turn it off, ask you to chip in , or I could sell my soul to the devil and start popping up banners on parts of your desktop never touched before. *shiver* Having ad-revenue being the only monetary support for a website will make us fall into the trap of the numbers game, posting things specifically to get eyeballs such as topless celebrities and scraped stuff from other sources, instead of actually making a broad archive of all ads and reporting on adnews without Britney Spears in it.

Now that latter suggestion sort of goes against the idea of a site dedicated to the uncensored rantings and ravings of adgrunts, and the educational viewing of old collected commercials (admit it, you love 'em). The other idea, of asking you to pretty please to chip in is pretty much dying too. See, out of 18000 unique visitors on average daily, only two donated a few bucks (and that was way back last year ...).

Aw bugger, we have now arrived at the pay-per-play conclusion. You sign up and log in, you want to watch a film, you'll have to pay a monthly fee.

As a non-paying member, you are still a member, you can read all articles (except anything within the category commmercials), and comment etc, the only difference is that if you pay for a months subscribtion, you see films too. You
will not be paying for the content of watching the films - you are paying for the bandwidth you use while watching the films. Hopefully, two bucks will cover it.

Compare it to borrowing my car, you can borrow it as much as you want, but fill the tank yourself, as you are the one using the gas. ;-)

Access to the commercial-archive - including the 27 years of superbowl commercials - however, isn't. Serving more than thirtythousand ads is very costly for me in bandwidth alone (nevermind hardware!) and after shelling out the sum of decent 17 inch screen every month, since 1999, for the bandwidth from my own personal pocket, I decided in 2002 that it would be better if we all shared the cost.

If several thousand people like the site, then several thousand people can chip in for the sites cost, making it really cheap for all of us! (Instead of a burdon on me alone.. Get it?)And it will save all of us from selling off our privacy to advertisers and spilling banners all over the place! No ads, No pop-ups, No paid news placements and no sneaky email harvesting for money tactics. All logged in adgrunts live in banner-free heaven. I really hate all that stuff - and I suspect you do too. Sound cool?

Santa's been through a lot in recent years - the trend away from homes with working chimneys, the rise in electronic home security systems, bad role model accusations by militant nutritionists, relentless charges of paganism from overzealous conservative groups, etc. - but his good and noble spirit has shown through mostly intact. However, this year's crop of commercials featuring Jolly Old Saint Nick has Santa seeing a little bit of red.

We offered him a forum to let his concerns be heard, and he accepted with great gusto and vehemence. Here then, is Adland's exclusive post-Christmas interview with Santa Claus...